How Does Your Neighborhood Get Its Power? Find Out With This Map

If you have ever wondered where the power comes from to light and heat your home, this new map created from U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data might give you some food for thought. Did burning coal supply the voltage that powers your television, or was it spinning turbines in a hydroelectric dam?

Though the map gives you a pretty good sense of fuel source by geographic region, rural areas make it seem as though some types of fuel account for larger percentages of the country's total energy consumption than they actually do. For example, large swaths of the west use hydropower as an energy source, but hydropower only accounts for 6 percent of the nation's total electricity generation, whereas small pockets rely on nuclear power, which generates 20 percent of America's electricity.

We still get most of our energy by burning coal and natural gases, which each provide 33 percent of the country's electricity, but new fuel sources continue to close the gap.